Agentless automation. This is key to why networking likes Ansible instead of similar products. Because just about all network devices cannot have network agents installed. (that is a feature of whitebox though)

I can’t sell you automation, it has to come from within. (kind of spiritual but true)

Anisible should be simple, its shouldn’t turn into something complex. At the same time people are doing unlikely things here,

Used for multiple systems – ie. works for Linux, Windows, as well firewalls, switches, appliances etc etc. Also used to manage SDN controllers.

Ansible has an enthusiastic community, with a lot participation. For open source projects this is important.

Ansible is not a programming language, its an automation language. Important differentiator. Its also not a SDN controller (implying that you are likely to have an SDN controller and Ansible can work that as a configuration destination, since Ansible is licensed per IP address (end node) – an SDN controller is not a single node for licensing, its still every device in the network

Ansible is geared towards team efforts – a playbook can bridge network/server/storage silos and bring them together. This is behind the fundamental intention of the product.

Automation changes the work of a network engineer to be better work by removing tedious work.

Ansible Network Engine

group of prepared playbooks that are widely used. They are packaged into a default distribution.

these are part of the supported solution in licensed product.

Loosely, what CVD is to Cisco products, Ansible Network Engine is a set of playbooks that are universal to most organisations.

the playbooks are opinionated through curation based on an understanding of what is widely used. Instead of everyone writing playbooks for configuration backups of well known devices, just ship them as part of a default set. Build them to a level of best practices,

bi-weekly recurring release cycle, ship early, ship often.

About Greg Ferro

Human Infrastructure for Data Networks. 25 year survivor of Corporate IT in many verticals, many tens of employers working on a wide range of networking solutions and products.

Host of the Packet Pushers Podcast on data networking at https://packetpushers.net - now one of the largest networking podcasts on the Internet.